Herefordian Vegetarianism
I am a rhino, a guinea pig, a goat, a gorilla and a giraffe.
What am I?
By Lizzi Armstrong
A vegetarian of course! The vegetarian society estimates that a quarter of the 6.5 billion people of this earth practise a vegetarian diet, technically meaning 44,600 people in this rural county of Herefordshire are working on the rule ‘No food with a face’. Does this mean that a quarter of all farmers in the county buy the cow, raise the cow, sell the cow and tuck into a nut roast on a Sunday afternoon? Somehow I doubt it.
As a fairly new Herefordian and a thoroughly established vegetarian, having had no meat or fish for the last seven years, I am somewhat bias on P.E.T.A’s (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) favourite issue. I originate from a cosmopolitan town on the south coast where pigs were only ever seen in severely outdated re-runs of ’The Good Life’. Moving to Hereford was something of a culture shock, not only to me but to the Herefordians who live here- especially the ones at the cattle market who when hearing of my vegetarian status looked shocked that my un-protein enriched self can actually stand upright, let alone talk.
However it is true there are welly-boot wearing, Glastonbury attending, bare-foot dancing, daisies-in-hair folk in this county, but are they vegetarian? Or vegan? Have they made the decision to spare the lives of over a hundred animals every year simply by not eating them? Bizarre as it is - I have only met a handful of them, with only one other young person I know having made this decision. Or is it secretly popular? Are local vegetarians in hiding, sworn to secrecy by their black-market tofu providers? Do young veggies feel a sense of shame every time they see a vegetable platter, waiting for the day they can ‘come out’ to their parents?
My favourite meat-free haunt of the ‘Green Cafe’ in central Hereford always seems to have a steady flow of custom, but are people there simply because the ‘houmous is absolutely divine’ or is it because the idea of a ‘big mac’ sends them reaching for their animal rights banner?
I’m sure many would argue that meat is there to be eaten. That cows, pigs, chicken and fish exist only because they ‘go with gravy’ and that not eating them would be a waste of food. However if the issue is waste then surely an animal with a death sentence set before its own birth is a waste of life? According to scientific studies, pigs are as intelligent as cats and dogs, and can be of the same cerebral level as three year old children. Surely then the choice between animals is bizarre, that Meg the sheepdog’s death will be as fair as Percy the pig’s. Yet this comparison is shocking to people, the idea of killing and eating something so characterful as a dog is utterly wrong morally, yet a pig with possibly just as much character dying for the dinner table is A-ok.
Is meat an outdated concept now, where countless alternatives are so easily available? Just because meat has been eaten for centuries surely doesn’t necessarily mean that humans are destined to eat it forever ‘just because’. Albert Einstein said ‘Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet’ and well, who am I to argue with Einstein?
Follow this link to find out more: www.peta2.com
